Part 0: Siofra
by Deeming
Summary: A baby is swapped... Part 0 of a series check profile for more


.

.

.

Some people confuse fate with coincidence, equally as many mistake happenstance with destiny.

And the rest?

They call a fluke a fluke and leave it at that.

It's these kinds of people that wouldn't understand what it meant on that late night, when a strange luminescent figure stepped out of a patch of mushrooms between two old trees, in a gully behind a dull suburban neighbourhood. Those kinds of people would be unable see as the figure smiled briefly as she/he/this figure drifted up into the sky, over the first street of identical houses; Exactly the sort favoured by they who would not understand, or see, for the simple fact that they did not believe in magic or the supernatural.

Not that their belief or disbelief had anything to do with the existence of magic, for in this world it existed whether they acknowledged it or not.

The only reason they would never see it was their cloying preoccupation with normality.

In another story this communal obsession with normality would allow this community to ignore a particular family's mistreatment and abuse of their unusual nephew.

But this story isn't about them, so let us get back to that strange figure, hey?

That figure is currently sitting under very large magnolia bush at the very corner of the crescent named after the plant, the figure pondered if the bush was planted because of the street's name, or if perhaps the bush came first and the street was named for it?

This conundrum so absorbed the figure that they scarcely noticed as late night passed into early morn and another figure appeared loudly in the other street that was connected to this 'magnolia crescent', the glowing figure under the bush blinked in shock briefly before scowling and muttering silently to themself about arrogant mortal wizardlings, as they hunched further under the bush.

But as they sat and watched as a nearby cat changed form and revealed herself to be another of the so-called 'wizardlings' and the two conversed briefly about something, (the glowing figure could not hear what).

Suddenly there came a rumbling from the sky as a flying motorcycle with a huge man flew over the rooftops and set itself down on the street in front of the two wizardling figures and he and the wizardling figures began to talk.

But despite this fourth figure being much louder than the other two, the glowing figure in the bush payed little attention to their talk, preoccupied as it was with the small bassinette in the enormous man's arms.

The glowing figure stared transfixed as they deposited the babe on a particular doorstep on the street and all three left.

What. The glowing figure thought as the figure checked that they were now truly alone, before wiggling their way out from under the bush and striding other to the doorstep the baby was deposited on.

'Hum' the figure thought to itself, 'here's an unusual occurrence, normally it is the fae who go about swapping and abandoning children on doorsteps, rarely is it an action under taken by few but the worst of the wizardlings'

The figure knelt down stroking the sleeping babe's face, gradually the little one shifted and some hair obscuring it forehead fell away from a strange scar in the shape of a rune.

'Ah!' the figure stood suddenly, 'an important child marked by some foul sorcery, but then why would they leave it here in this unprotected place?' the figure pondered as they turned to look at the house picked out from its identical brethren by nothing bar the shear presence of the child.

Then on through its 'sense' for magic, one it usually associated with its sense of smell, it felt it someone possibly a mother had laid some fragile of blood protection over the baby, the sort that would thicken over time, and obscure the place it spend its formative years from the ones who sought to kill the babe and on contact burn those who practiced foul sorcery.

Still for now that protection was non-existent, and this figure did not consider itself capable of leaving an unprotected baby out in the night.

'What to do?' the figure thought, the babe could not stay here, not marked by enemies and with no protection, but at the same time, the figure was on the run, they had exposed a dangerous truth to the fae courts and stolen two items that were very valuable to the wild hunt. Two items that had to very urgently disappear, for good!

'And well…' it thought 'what better place to hide an item of power than a baby' the grinned as it removed a small golden arrowhead from within its sleeve.

Using the arrowhead it drew a few drops of blood from the baby's mark and with it the foul tainted magic making the mark seem to disappear, the figure presses it in to a small ball of soil from a nearby flowerbed, before enfolding it all in a large leaf from that magnolia tree at the corner.

'After all' the figure smiled tenderly down as the bundle glowed and grew transforming before its eyes into another baby identical to the first in all features except the mark on its forehead that was no longer visible on the other.

'Give a babe power and the little one's soul will absorb it so thoroughly it can never be removed'

The figure then crouched down and swapped one babe of the other.

Cuddling the original babe to its chest it started to drift up high into the air, drift higher and higher, before at some undetermined point in the sky, it disappeared in a flash of white light.

.

.

.


End file.
